Mac Book Pro returned…and the Apple Store Experience

Its fair to say my Mac Book is not treated with kid gloves, as the ‘Genius’ behind the counter said, ‘this one has had a fair workout’ as he wrote on the work form ‘numerous deep scratches”.

None the less it was a surprise when the video card cacked it, especially since my first MacBook Pro that I bought two years ago is still going strong. Thankfully it was still 7 days under warranty, and they would fix it for nothing. Its brilliant how every Apple Product has its own serial number, indicating date of purchase. No scrounging for receipts, just bring it in Mr Edwards and we will fix it for you. Try doing that with your generic PC.

The service was efficient at The Apple Store, although they took their time, despite there being numerous stuff. The place is just busy…..all the time. The systems they have in place are very good, and I waved my essential work tool goodbye. The guy on the counter said it might even be fixed that day, but certainly by the next one.

It wasn’t, and after the third day with no Photoshop or Final Cut, the work was piling up. Today I got a little more forceful on the phone, the fourth day without a Mac will do that to you. After some time of probing, we discovered that the microphone was gone as well, and they were waiting on parts. That would have been nice to know, at least I would have known. But to their credit, when it was fixed, they rang me.

Its shiny, its been cleaned, and everything seems to be working.

While the service was not better than I expected, or even what they had promised, the fact I have my computer back fully functioning, at no cost to me, is good. The service is better than any other computer shop, that is for sure.
POSTSCRIPT: NOT HAPPY JAN! After about 5 minutes of use, the MacBook has gone back to the same problem and I have had to take it into the Apple Store again…….aaaargh! Fix it the first time….please

POSTRSCIPT2: UNFORTUNATELY….the second processor (at a cost of over $700 to Apple) was replaced, and you guessed it….same problem. I took it in this morning, and explained, calmly, that this was third time I had brought it in. Another genius had a look, we had a long chat, and looked at when it crashed. It had crashed whenever I used a Adobe product…or watched flash videos. mmmmmm. He installed a fresh install of Lion for free. This seems to have fixed the problem, I am reinstalling CS Design Suite as I type. I really hope that is the fix. I also suspect it may not have needed $1400+ worth of repairs (at Apples cost) if we had done this at first, but I could be wrong.